ATLANTIC Ocean is rapidly driving many Ondo communities into extinction. In this report, The ICIR visited the Ilaje Local Government Area (LGA) of the state recently, and captured the magnitude of devastation and displacements that coastal flooding is causing in the area.

Obe-Nla

A drowning legacy: Obe-Nla’s battle against the rising tide

When Ikuesan Lucky, a Law student and son of Obe-Nla’s monarch, Andrew Kolawole Ikuesan, was a child, he could easily go with his siblings behind their home to cast a net into the creek and catch a bowl of fish within minutes.

Lucky said fish was much in Obe-Nla’s surrounding waters like grasses in the field. Residents could eat as much fish as they wanted and sell enough to meet their needs, he added as he pointed at different parts of the community floating on water.

He recalled how fisherfolks returned home daily with large harvests and his community revelled in abundance.

Ondo State Governor, Lucky Aiyedatiwa, hails from Obe-Nla, one of the communities now sinking into the sea.

Lucky, who spoke on behalf of his father, and in the company of several community leaders, told The ICIR that oil exploration on the Atlantic Ocean, worsened by climate change, was destroying his town.

“Way back when I was a kid, I remember that under this walkway, if you placed a little net under the water, a lot of fish would come out. But as a result of the oil exploration here, the whole thing started degrading. Things are no longer the way they used to be.

“I remember in 2005 when I was writing my senior WASSCE, if you went to the fishermen at the seashore, they would give you fish that when you got home, your family would think you went to fish. Things are no longer like that. Even going to the sea and coming back, some of them will go like two, three or four times before they could get half of what they used to bring home when things were still okay.”

Obe-Nla and its neighbours used to be proud owners of large farms. There is no longer any land for planting crops. Land previously used for farming is now either in the sea’s belly or have become sloughs. This makes food unaffordable for most families who now survive on fishing.

While water covers every community in the area, there is no clean water to drink or use for household chores.

We are on top of water and don’t have water to drink; is it not funny? The only water here is from the rain.

“We are on top of water and don’t have water to drink; is it not funny? The only water here is from the rain,” Lucky said.

The seawater is salty and has a sandy brown colour across its banks, making it unusable for washing and bathing in homes.

Water from swamps in the communities is worse. It has different colours, including green and black. Because of the inundation, residents cannot dig the ground for well or to bury their dead.

Many residents depend on rainwater which they store in tanks from one rainy season till the following year because they cannot afford sachet water and other packaged water. A bag of sachet water sells for as high as N1,500 compared to other parts of the state where it sells for a maximum of N400.

This disparity is seen mostly in prices of foodstuffs namely rice, beans, yam, and cassava flour, not only because they cannot be cultivated in the area but because the cost of transporting them by water is very high.

The cost of transport on water in the area is more than what passengers pay for land transportation. A journey on the water for an hour costs an average of N5,000, while a similar journey from Igbokoda to Igbo-Nla in the LGA, which is more than an hour, is N2,000.

Lucky is more concerned about education and health which appear to have collapsed in the area. He lamented that doctors and nurses were not willing to work in hospitals while teachers turned down posting to schools because of the sea’s incursion.

All hospitals and schools visited by The ICIR in the coastal communities in the LGA, including Obe-Nla, Ayetoro, Awoye, Moluteyin, Abereke, and Idi-Ogba, floated on water.

Lucky said a lot of people died in his town because of lack of functional hospitals. “I remember one of my brother’s wives lost her son and daughter because they ran to the health centre and there was no doctor or nurse to take care of them.”

Lucky reasoned that these crises would have been averted had oil exploration not taken place on the sea, and if the Nigerian government had responded to contain the ocean as it did in Lagos State.

He continued, “We were managing ourselves here but the multinationals that came for greener pastures are not helping matters.”

People of Obe-Nla who spoke with The ICIR on the challenges posed by the Atlantic Ocean on the community mentioned states where firms support their host communities and urged the state governor to work with the Federal Government and other partners to rescue the area from the sea.

Every resident of the coastal communities lives on water or very close to it. Most homes and roads are built with planks on water or mud.

Locals said dozens of settlements in the area face coastal flooding, namely Mese, Gbagira, Alagbon, Oroto, Bijimi, Ilowo, and Ilepete, among others.

“There are dozens of communities along the waterway that leads from here to Delta State,” said the general secretary of Obe-Nla, Ikuenomore Oluwasinaayomi.

The ICIR saw the governor’s home built with planks with a wooden pathway as others. But Obe-Nla now has a concrete pathway under construction, the first in the area. The pathway is linked to the governor’s house. Sources said work began on the project after the governor joined the administration of the late Governor Rotimi Akeredolu.

Meanwhile, one of the first questions that run through a visitor’s mind is how the people get the huge planks they use for their buildings and road construction given that there are no forests close to them, and all transportation is done on water.

Many of the woods are ferried from Delta and other parts of Ondo State, The ICIR findings showed.

Ayetoro

Ayetoro’s vanishing shore: How the Ocean is erasing a historic town

The ocean’s waves splash furiously on the debris of buildings it submerged across its banks in Ayetoro, leaving the remaining structures surviving on planks and their occupants in perennial despair.

At least 90 per cent of the community’s landmass has been devoured by the rampaging water, said Akingboye Thomson, the community’s youth spokesperson and personal assistant to the town’s monarch and spiritual leader, Oba Oluwambe Ojagbohumi, the Ogeloyinbo of Ayetoro.

“The sea consumes a large portion of the town yearly, and the once famous community may be no more in a few years if nothing is done to salvage the situation,” Thomson said.

He blamed the crisis on oil exploration on the sea and global warming.

Akingboye said of the town, “Ayetoro community is a theocratic communist Christian settlement founded by a conglomeration of believers known as the apostles on January 12, 1947. This community in its heydays had the highest per capita income in the whole of West Africa. It was the community that put Nigeria in the comity of boat-building nations. The first fishing boat that was built in Nigeria was here in 1964.

“We had industries that were established by the community. We had soap and ice-making factories, bakery, shoe factory and textile industries. All these industries were put together through communal efforts. Ayetoro was a self-sufficient community because we had everything; the town was a centre of attraction for its peers.”

The sea has swallowed all the factories and many schools, including about 1,000 residential homes.

The community started observing that the ocean took some of its land in the 90s. But the rate at which it was expanding at that period was negligible.

However, the trend changed in 2000 when it began to sweep the town at an alarming rate, Adegboye noted.

“During this period, we started making passionate appeals to government at all levels. At that time, the Federal Government established an interventionist agency, which is Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC). It was created in 2000.

“We started crying, writing letters to the government at all levels. In 2004, NDDC awarded a shoreline protection contract. At the time, it had not affected any of our buildings, but the rate at which it was getting closer to the communities was like 20 metres away from our buildings. The NDDC awarded the contract to Gallet Nigeria Limited at the sum of N3.5 billion. This we saw on the pages of newspapers. We didn’t see contractors and any equipment.

“After one or two years, we didn’t hear anything. Then the ocean kept eroding and submerging our buildings and land. We started another cry. After a series of petitions and protests, they re-awarded the contract to  Drenji Atlantic Limited at the sum of N6.5 billion in 2009.”

He said the company got N2.5 billion from the contract fund before it began work.

The firm brought some equipment and did a shoddy job that was blown away by the sea in a few days. That was all Ayetoro saw from the company to date, Akingboye alleged.

Several government organisations and committees have visited Ayetoro and its environs to assess the damage caused by the sea. They include the NDDC; Federal Ministry of Environment; Senate Committee on Environment; House of Reps Committee on Ecology; and Ondo State government agencies.

Adegboye opined that the land taken by the sea is reclaimable if the government is determined to stop the incursion.

“We are appealing to the government at all levels to come to the rescue of Ayetoro community as a matter of urgency. In a month from now, if urgent action is not taken to address the devastating effects of the ocean surge, where you stand as you’re speaking with me, you will not locate it again.”

Limamu Lawrence, leader of the Holy Apostle Church in Ayetoro, who doubles as second in command to the town’s monarch, said the ocean overrun communities at night and had taken three people away in their sleep.

“As I speak with you, this palace is not my home. I became a tenant in my own town. I was born here. The ocean has taken away my house and those of my parents.

“Before now, only an average of three people lived in a house. But now, up to 15 people struggle to live in a house. The sea has destroyed people’s property. The worst part is that the ocean often comes at night when people sleep. We’re only lucky to know how to swim. If not, we would have had many causalities,” he stated.

He said because of the persistent attacks by the ocean, many people had left the town.

Leading a debate on devastations caused by the ocean on the Ayetoro community and its environs, a member of the House of the Representatives for Ilaje and Ese-Edo LGA of Ondo State, Donald Ojogo, averred that Ayetoro is not just a major revenue source in Nigeria, but a community rich in history and culture in Ondo State.

He said it accounted for 5.4 per cent of the 60,000 barrels per day (BPD) of crude oil extracted in the state, averaging 3.7 per cent of Nigeria’s total oil production.

Awoye

When the Ocean rejects sacrifices: Awoye’s desperate fight for survival

Due to the failure to stop the ocean encroachment, some of the people resorted to appeasing it with sacrifices but they said the sea rejected their oblations.

A community leader in Awoye, Tobashe Aribo, said, “We make sacrifices for the ‘Olokun’ (The Goddess of the sea) We appease it, but it often rejects our propitiation. We make the sacrifices once yearly. Part of what we give the ocean includes chicken, pounded yam, banana and biscuits.”

Like Ayetoro, the ocean has ripped through Awoye town – the largest of several communities in the area.  Except for those who would swim, crossing from one part of a community to the other, especially in Awoye, requires boarding a boat for a fee.  This further worsens the cost of living in the area.

The ICIR found that residents are clutching to the communities for two reasons. The land going into the sea’s paunch is their ancestral heritage and their only major occupation is fishing. They do commercial fishing, selling fish, crayfish and other sea foods which are transported by vehicle from Igbo-Nla to different parts of Nigeria.

Water crisis

Surrounded by water, but none to drink: The Community waiting for hours at borehole for coloured water

One of the worrying scenes in Awoye is how residents wait for hours to fetch borehole water that is darker than the water on their soil.

Residents seen at one of the boreholes said they had no other source of water. “This is the water that we drink here. The people you see here arrived at 5:am. It takes over an hour for us to get a bowl. We have to use force to pump the water out. That is how we suffer every day.

“A bag of sachet water is between N2,000 and N2,500. Sometimes, we don’t see the water to buy. Our children would have no option but to drink this one. When they drink it, they will fall sick and we begin to run from one hospital to the other,” a women leader in the town, Mowumi Ayetoba, said.

She decried the lack of electricity, functional schools and hospitals in the community.

Some children waiting for their turn at the borehole described the water as a ‘miracle’. By this, they imply the effort it takes them to get a cup of water from the borehole. Unlike boreholes elsewhere where water gushes out when pumped, residents push the pump in Awoye about five times to get a cup filled.

Schools and Health

Toilets on water

What could constitute a health crisis is the manner of defecating in the communities.

Checks by The ICIR showed that households defecate in enclosed areas built with wood in rectangular shapes on the water for bathing and defecation. The wastes drop in the water underneath through gaps created in between the floor planks and spread into the neighbourhood.

A major revelation about the toilets is that some of them have a small jug tied with a rope to the wood on the toilets’ floors. To clean themselves up, users have to draw the rope and fetch water from the same spot where their faeces dropped. Users are also likely to fetch up almost the same water that dropped from their anus again and again, depending on the number of times they fetch water with the jug and how fast the process runs.

“Pray that you don’t have to come to the toilet at night when a legion of mosquitoes is on the loose,” a resident Moneyin James remarked.

Moluteyin

Education on the brink: A headteacher’s travails in Moluteyin

The ocean has also destroyed the majority of houses in Moluteyin, another town in the LGA.

The head of the community, Nomiye Amapopomi, said many children had pulled out of school and several families are living in extreme hardship.

Amapopomi, also the town’s religious leader, said schools and other important buildings in the community had been consumed by water.

“We have government offices here where people are supposed to be working. Nobody has come there to work because of much water flowing within the structures,” he said.

Over 1,000 houses have been overrun by the sea and fishing activities disrupted by water, said Orofin Temihan, a youth leader in the town.

Another youth, Ajimosan Ikuemehinlo, concurred, noting that there were no roads and a few children attending school often fell off the wooden pathways and broke their legs.

Ayemimowa Elisha Innocent is the headteacher of the Local Education Authority (LEA) Primary School in Moluteyin.

He met 400 pupils in the school when he resumed in 2019. Following the sea incursion, the school’s population has reduced to less than 70. The sea is a few metres away from the school.

“Since 2021 when I became the headteacher, I have been a permanent classroom teacher to primary five and six till date. We want the government to help us. Everything is not good at all. The school is gone, even the staff quarters is also gone,” he scowled.

“No parents will like to see their children swimming in the class,” he replied in reaction to why the pupils ran from the school.

The school has only three staff – the headteacher and two others.

The ICIR observed that all classrooms in the school were dilapidated. Water got to half of the classroom’s walls during the rainy season, as indicated on the walls. Most of the woods used as the class floors have rotten. The ceilings were also falling off.

The situation is worse at the staff quarters where the headteacher, his wife and two children live. No other staff lives at the quarters.

He covered several planks on the building’s floor with heaps of nylon because snakes often took shelter within the building. The reporter saw shed skins from snakes in the building.

Besides, the quarter is more dilapidated than the school building, as his family is at risk of being consumed by the sea and harmful aquatic creatures.

State government fails to react to findings

The ICIR contacted the state Commissioner for Environment, Oyeniyi Oseni, for a reaction to its findings. He urged the reporter to call him later because he was scheduled to attend a meeting. He declined all calls from the reporter thereafter until the governor sacked him and several other cabinet members in the government on January 15.

The ICIR also contacted the Chief Press Secretary to the governor, Ebenezer Adeniyan, for comments on the findings. He promised to respond to a WhatsApp message sent to him on the findings. Several reminders and calls to his line attracted no response for over two weeks.

Contractor – Dredging Atlantic Limited – wants story ‘killed’

The reporter contacted Dredging Atlantic Limited through one of the phone numbers on its website. The official who spoke with the reporter, Emmanuel Enyia, requested that the report be killed, arguing that publishing such a work would damage his company’s reputation.

“You know Nigeria; we don’t like any publication. This is Nigeria, we wouldn’t want any publication…The thing (contract) is from NDDC. We want to stop it at your table,” he said before the reporter interjected him and made him understand that The ICIR would never stop its investigation for pecuniary or other reasons.

The reporter urged him to state his company’s part by explaining how it spent the N2.5 billion it allegedly received from the contract.

The man later promised to send the contact of his colleagues in Port Harcourt whom he said handled the Ayetoro contract. Rather than send the number, he sent the reporter’s phone number to a prominent indigene in Ondo State, who came pleading on the company’s behalf.

The ICIR reports that Dredging Atlantic Limited was registered on November 8, 2006, with RC – 672448, according to its information on the Corporate Affairs Commission.

NDDC declines comments 

Similarly, the reporter contacted the NDDC through its spokesperson, Seledi Thompson-Wakama, to know why the contracts awarded for shoreline protection in Ayetoro failed.

She requested the details, and they were sent to her on January 14, 2025, via WhatsApp. She failed to respond to the message despite several reminders and calls to her line from the reporter.

Marcus FATUNMOLE

Marcus bears the light, and he beams it everywhere. He's a good governance and decent society advocate. He's The ICIR Reporter of the Year 2022 and has been the organisation's News Editor since September 2023. Contact him via email @ mfatunmole@icirnigeria.org